The Lotus Empire (The Burning Kingdoms #3)

Chapter 77 Rao

RAO

In the chaos—the fire and screaming, the tumult of bodies—Hemanth managed to get on a horse and ride away.

“Someone stop him!” Rao demanded.

“I’ll go,” Narayan said. “With me!” He ordered his men, and Rao saw them move into formation, unsteady with terror as flames arced overhead, sinuous as serpents.

Someone was riding toward them. Mahesh, again.

“You must leave! They’ve turned on each other,” Mahesh said savagely. He was wounded, blood pouring from his side. He listed unsteadily on his horse, then keeled over. A handful of soldiers grabbed him before he could crack his skull and helped him carefully to the ground. “Those warrior priests. Those bastards .” He winced. “Fucking Hemanth has warrior turning on warrior. What a time for fighting over faith.”

Rao raised his head. The whole army was fighting itself, and those who weren’t fighting were burning. He swore. He could have been sick.

“My most loyal soldiers know what to do,” Mahesh was saying grimly. “They’ll slit the throats of any priestly warrior they see. Those fucking fanatics won’t make it beyond the perimeter of my own men. You know the strangest thing, Prince Rao?” He coughed, blood on his lips. “Not all of them fight against us,” he said. “Some fight for us. The empress truly swayed them.”

A soldier was racing toward them, tumbling over his own feet.

“The fire is targeting people with rot first!” he yelled. There were leaves in his hair. He ran without stopping.

Rao looked down at Mahesh, eyes drawn to the lichen at his throat. He felt his heart thud.

There was a crash. A horse felled. The ground ahead of them began to burn, as a horse and rider were engulfed. The fire began to roll toward them, a wave of golden heat.

Mahesh met Rao’s eyes. His smile was joyless, knowing.

“Tell my daughter,” Mahesh said, his voice a rasp. “Tell her…”

The fire swallowed him like a fist. Rao leapt back, landing on his back, narrowly avoiding the burst of fire. His face felt painfully hot, his lips singed, eyes stinging. He scrambled to his feet, reaching—but Mahesh was writhing in agony, rolling on the ground. Mahesh was going still. Mahesh was gone.

“Rao!” Lata called, terrified.

“Take a horse,” Rao heard Lord Khalil bark at her.

“No, I—”

“You’re no warrior,” he told her brusquely. Rao could barely hear him over the crackle of flames, the screaming. “And the empress will need your guidance when this war is done. Ride , Sage Lata. Go to the war camp and wait there.”

“A horse will not ride through flames,” she said, her voice choked.

“You think I didn’t train my horses to face fire, after our war with Chandra?” Khalil’s grin was all teeth—fierce and wild. “Go now, or Prince Rao will be too worried to face battle.”

Khalil helped her onto one of the horses. It raced away, Lata on its back, and Rao felt some terrible fear unknot in him.

Good. At least she’d live.

Khalil offered Rao a hand.

“With me,” he said. “We have long been the empress’s allies. Let us remove this thorn from her side together.”

They could not stop the flames. But they could stop the maker.

Rao took his hands and leapt onto horseback without fear. The Dwarali horse was a powerful steed—despite their combined weight she raced across the field of fire, her mane streaming and her muscles rippling powerfully.

Hemanth was ahead of them, surrounded by a handful of soldiers. He must have brought them from Parijat with him, or perhaps they had defected from the army. Rao did not care. In front of him, Khalil nocked his bow and, without pausing, shot one man, then another, and another. They were felled. He and Khalil kept on racing forward.

Lord Narayan lay dead on the ground, throat open and eyes sightless. His chariot had fallen.

Hemanth has something. Some weapon we don’t see , Rao realized. He opened his mouth to say it—and felt an awful weight hit them.

The horse went down with a crash. Khalil tumbled. There was a sickening crack and he was still.

“Lord Khalil,” Rao called, coughing, finding his feet. His left leg was agony. “ Khalil. ” It was broken, perhaps. He ran to Khalil anyway. He collapsed next to him and felt for the man’s breath, pulse. Khalil groaned.

Alive , Rao thought with relief. Injured, but alive. He looked at the horse.

They’d been hit with a thrown spear tipped with fire.

Hemanth’s soldiers were dead, arrow-struck. But a black box lay by one of their bodies. And Hemanth held a spear that glowed with flame.

False fire. Chandra’s fire.

Hemanth followed his gaze.

“It is imperfect,” Hemanth said. “But we kept it from the empress. It is not a fit weapon for the yaksa, but it serves to punish men like you.”

“You have no skill with weapons, Hemanth,” Rao said.

“And yet I will stand against you and those like you, Prince Rao,” he said, with sorrow and righteousness in his eyes. “And my priests, even the greenest boys among them, will stand against you.”

Rao drew his heart’s-shell dagger and strode forward.

He lunged first. Hemanth swung, and the fire arced through the air. Rao should have had the benefit of speed, but Hemanth had the greater reach, and Rao had a broken leg. Rao leapt out of the way. Stumbled, pain shooting up to his hip. His blade fell—

Hemanth struck him again. A blade of fire almost hit the armor at his shoulder. He lurched away. Not enough.

A spear-butt cracked against his skull.

Blackness.